| | | | | | | Presented By Bank of America | | | | Axios AM | | By Mike Allen ·Nov 08, 2020 | | 🇺🇸Good Sunday morning! Today's Smart Brevity™ count: 1,279 words ... 5 minutes. The car horns will always be my memory of Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020 — the day America defied predictions and preparations for violence, and instead broke into a visceral, visible celebration of a new chapter for an aching nation. - The honking went on for hours. I was drinking wine outside at 7th and E NW in D.C. — not even the center of the action. I held up my phone so my friends and family could hear for themselves, and tell their kids. Who'll tell their kids.
- "Didn't know this many families in DC had maracas," Cyrus Beschloss tweeted.
| | | | | | 1 big thing ... Biden's spoils: A hot American mess | | Black Lives Matter Plaza, near the White House. Photo: Al Drago/Getty Images Never before has a president-elect inherited a complex set of urgent — and epic — emergencies like the ones confronting Joe Biden and America. - Why it matters: FDR, no doubt, inherited a hot American, Depression-era mess in 1932. President-elect Biden's spoils, in some respects, are similarly rotten: a spreading pandemic, sky-high long-term unemployment, stratospheric federal debt, an outgoing president claiming the Democrat stole the election, a nation bitterly divided, and misinformation and lies spreading at scale on platforms available to every citizen for free.
Any one of these crises would take a presidential term to tame. Six, at once, seem almost incomprehensible in their scale and complexity. - Biden plans to focus first on the coronavirus and the economic devastation it continues to wreak. Getting the nation to feel secure about its physical and economic health will determine whether Biden is a success or failure.
But the messes are many, Jim VandeHei writes: - An average of 100,000+ people are getting the virus daily — a number expected to keep rising through the holidays. Biden has zero authority to attack it until late January. He'll get a head start Monday by appointing his own COVID task force. In his victory speech last night, he promised a plan "built on a bedrock of science ... to turn this pandemic around."
- Real unemployment is much worse than the headline figures, and shows the true depth of the recession Biden will inherit. Modeling we unveiled on "Axios on HBO" shows that if you define an unemployed person as someone "looking for a full-time job that pays a living wage who can't find one," the effective unemployment rate in the U.S. is 26.1%.
- The federal deficit topped $3 trillion in the year that ended Sept. 30, and will haunt Washington next year, despite the bipartisan decision to ignore it. By some measures, it's the biggest budget gap since 1945 — a reminder that the U.S. is confronting crises on a scale it has encountered only a couple of times in 230 years.
- Trump will torment Biden from outside the White House, and could dominate Republican politics and media for years to come. Trump retains a psychic hold on a huge swath of America, making quick healing look out of reach.
- Social media, which has connected the world and enabled so much creativity and so many new businesses, creates a distortion field that amplifies the worst in us, and is an accelerant for lies and nonsense. This makes the White House's bully pulpit, once the most formidable communications platform in the world, just one more voice in the feed.
The bottom line: Biden confidants say he knows this weekend's halo is an aberration. His reality is a rising left in the Democratic Party that will constantly pressure him, a Republican majority in the Senate that will constantly constrain him, and a reality of a rattled world that will constantly haunt him. |     | | | | | | 2. Biden tells America to "lower the temperature" | | President-elect Biden and Dr. Jill Biden celebrated onstage with Vice President-elect Harris and her husband, Doug, in Wilmington last night. Photo: Jim Bourg/Reuters President-elect Joe Biden, in his outdoor victory speech in Wilmington, said voters gave him a mandate to renew cooperation and asked President Trump's supporters to give him a chance, Margaret Talev writes. - But he's seeking unity amid epic divisions between educated and uneducated whites, whites and people of color, haves and have-nots, and urban vs. rural populations.
- President Trump rose to office by stoking those divisions, weaponizing social media and urging supporters to disbelieve facts and science.
Last night's remarks were the beginning of Biden's effort to unwind those four years: For all those of you who voted for President Trump, I understand the disappointment tonight. I've lost a couple of times myself. But now, let's give each other a chance. It's time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again. To make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. They are not our enemies. They're Americans. They're Americans. The Bible tells us: To everything, there's a season — a time to build; a time to reap, and a time to sow; and a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America. More from his speech. | | | | | | | | 3. Kamala Harris makes history | | Vice President-elect Harris and her family watch fireworks last night. Photo: Paul Sancya/AP Vice President-elect Kamala Harris said Saturday that Americans chose "hope, unity, decency, science — and, yes, truth" in electing Joe Biden the 46th president, Laurin-Whitney Gottbrath writes. Harris, 56, will become the first woman, first Black American and first Indian American as vice president — the highest ranking woman ever in the line of succession to the president. - "While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last," she declared.
Wearing a white suit and blouse, symbolizing the women's suffrage movement, and an American flag pin, Harris praised Biden's "audacity" for choosing a woman as running mate. | | | | | | | | A message from Bank of America | | Reasons for Hope | | |  | | | | Hope Pharmacy, one of Virginia's few locally owned neighborhood pharmacies, was able to keep serving the community and 5 employees throughout the impacts of the coronavirus. See how Bank of America is supporting small businesses like Hope and the local communities that depend on them. | | | | | | 4. America erupts | | Najee Thompson celebrates on 14th Street NW in D.C. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images In Washington, people waved Joe Biden signs from car windows and balconies. In Manhattan, people stopped cars wherever they happened to be, got out and danced. Car horns and bells echoed through neighborhoods across Puerto Rico. - In Louisville, Biden supporters gathered on lawns to toast with champagne.
- In Kansas City, they swayed in a park to "Celebration" by Kool & the Gang. (AP)
Photo: Susan Walsh/AP People quickly jammed Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House. - Celebrations also filled Times Square and the Castro District in San Francisco, and broke out from L.A. to Chicago to Atlanta to Philadelphia.
Photo: Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images In Wilmington after Biden's speech, fireworks launched as illuminated drones spelled "46." | | | | | | | | 5. Trump doesn't concede |  | | | Photo: Al Drago/Getty Images | | | | President Trump was golfing at his Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., when news organizations called Joe Biden as the 46th president. - Trump didn't speak publicly, but tweeted away:
Here's Trump arriving back at the White House after golf: Photo: Evan Vucci/AP | | | | | | | | 6. Tweet du jour | | | | | | | | | | 7. Pennsylvania's decisive 0.01% |  | | | Clockwise, via NBC News, Fox News, CBS News, CNN. | | | | CNN called the race for Joe Biden first, at 11:24 a.m. ET, and was followed within two minutes by AP, NBC, CBS and ABC. Fox News called the race at 11:40. Heading into Saturday, CNN, CBS, NBC and ABC had Biden at 253 electoral votes. AP and Fox News had given him Arizona, leaving him 6 short of 270. Pennsylvania's 20 EVs would put him above the 270 needed to win, AP explains: - Pennsylvania mail-in ballots erased an earlier Trump lead. With the release of a new batch of ballots yesterday, Biden's margin exceeded 34,000 (0.51 percentage points) — above the trigger for a recount (less than 0.5 points).
NBC's Savannah Guthrie asked Chuck Todd to "show your work." - Todd explained: "Even if it may slip into a recount, we think there's just the mathematically nearly impossible for the order of finish to change in Pennsylvania."
Go deeper: Why AP called the election for Biden. | | | | | | | | 8. Time capsule | | And London calling ... | | | | | | | | 9. Party amid pandemic: Notre Dame sacks #1 Clemson | | Photo: Matt Cashore/Pool via AP Students stormed the field from all four corners of the stands after the #4 Fighting Irish upset #1 Clemson, 47-40, in two overtimes last night at Notre Dame Stadium, ESPN reports. - Notre Dame is limiting attendance to students, players' families, and faculty and university personnel, so yesterday's attendance was just 11,011.
Clemson had won 36 straight regular-season games. | | | | | | | | 10. 1 smile to go | | Photo: Will Heath/NBC Jim Carrey as President-elect Biden, and Maya Rudolph as Vice President-elect Harris, during the "Biden Victory" cold open on "Saturday Night Live." - Alec Baldwin, as President Trump, welcomed everyone to "my victory speech."
YouTube Photo: Will Heath/NBC Beck Bennett as Wolf Blitzer and Alex Moffat as John King. | | | | | | | | A message from Bank of America | | Hope in Reston, Virginia | | | | | | | | "It's not easy to try and find a helping hand—let alone one that understands complex financial matters—during a time of crisis," says Dr. Brown, owner of Hope Pharmacy. See how Bank of America is helping small businesses like Hope Pharmacy so that they can keep serving their communities. | | | | 📬 Thanks for starting your day with us. Invite your friends to sign up for Axios AM/PM. | |
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